Shrinking middle class

Here was one of the questions on Mrs. Koch's eighth grade science test in 1970 (we're paraphrasing): Do computers create or eliminate jobs?

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Posted Feb. 17, 2013 at 2:05 AM

Posted Feb. 17, 2013 at 2:05 AM

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Here was one of the questions on Mrs. Koch's eighth grade science test in 1970 (we're paraphrasing): Do computers create or eliminate jobs?

The correct answer back then, at the dawn of the information technology revolution, was that computers would boost our economy and lead to millions of new jobs. And it did for a while, but today the answer may be different.

The recent three-part series by The Associated Press on the loss of middle-class jobs and the role of technology confirmed our worst suspicion: Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, according to experts who study the labor market. The jobs aren't just being lost to China and other developing countries, and they aren't just factory work. Increasingly, jobs are disappearing in the service sector, home to two-thirds of all workers.

Consider the great business successes of the Internet age: Apple employs 80,000 people worldwide, Google, 54,000, Facebook, 4,300. Combined, those three superstar companies employ less than a quarter of the 600,000 people General Motors had in the 1970s, the AP reported. And today, GM employs just 202,000 people, while making more cars than ever.

Just about every industry has been affected. Think about all those check-in kiosks at airports and check-out kiosks at grocery stores. Fewer workers.

Remember the thousands of assembly line workers that have been replaced by robots?

How about voice technology ("enter 1 to pay your bill, 2 to report a problem...") at nearly every company. Fewer workers still.

Yes, technology has also empowered entrepreneurs to start up their own companies. But thanks to software, entrepreneurs are launching businesses with a third fewer employees than in the 1990s.

The global economy is being reshaped by machines that generate and analyze vast amounts of data; by devices such as smartphones and tablet computers that let people work just about anywhere; by smarter, nimbler robots; and by services that let businesses rent computing power when they need it, instead of installing expensive equipment and hiring IT staffs to run it. Whole employment categories, from secretaries to travel agents, are disappearing.

The numbers are startling. In the U.S., half of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the recession paid middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. But only 2 percent of the 3.5 million jobs gained since the recession ended pay middle class wages. Nearly 70 percent are low-paying jobs; 29 percent pay well.

Some occupations are beneficiaries of the march of technology, such as software engineers and app designers for smartphones and tablet computers. But, overall, technology is eliminating far more jobs than it is creating.

Some argue that technological innovations have been throwing people out of jobs for centuries, but they eventually create more work and greater wealth. Such transformative inventions as the locomotive, telephone and automobile destroyed some businesses, but new ones emerged.

But this time may be different, according to some mainstream economists. "For the first time, we are seeing machines that can think — or something close to it," the AP reported. "So the rise of computer technology poses a threat that previous generations of machines didn't: The old machines replaced human brawn but created jobs that required human brains. The new machines threaten both."

All the more reason for high schools to focus on critical thinking skills — and a healthy dose of science, technology, engineering and math.